Cassedy Collection

This collection was formed by Séamus Ó Casaide (James Cassedy) (1877–1943), the Celtologist and bibliographer, and purchased by the John Rylands Library in 1946.

Ó Casaide was a significant figure in the Irish cultural revival, and contributed over 400 articles, principally on bibliography and Irish-language writers, to a variety of journals.1

There are some 200 periodicals, Dublin and provincial newspapers, directories, almanacs and chapbooks. The books, which include some exceedingly rare titles, date mainly from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Subjects covered include genealogy, local history, both the Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths, Gaelic dictionaries, grammars and texts, Anglo-Irish verse and prose, natural history and topography.

Ó Casaide’s particular interest was the development of the various societies that were founded during the nineteenth century to promote interest in Irish language and culture.

There are pamphlets and periodicals from such bodies as the Gaelic Society of Dublin, the Gaelic Union of Dublin, and the Gaelic League, as well as popular journals such as the Dublin Penny Journal.

There is a special section devoted to the publications of Patrick Lynch (1754–1818), the Secretary of the Gaelic Union.

1He was known as Ó Casaide by 1905 at the latest. See Vincent Morley, ‘Ó Casaide, Séamus (Cassedy, James)’, in James McGuire and James Quinn (eds), Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge, 2009), vol. 7, p. 166.